Will Commercial Supersonic Flight Resume?
I wasn’t lucky enough to fly in the supersonic Concorde back in the days that Air France and British Airways carried well-heeled and expense account travelers at twice the speed of sound (Mach 2). I have a few friends that made those three-hour journeys from New York or D.C. to London or Paris. It was a costly first-class ticket and they didn’t get one of those keen seats that unfold into a bed. But at that alactrity you hardly needed a night’s sleep.
Fast forward to today when that East Coast to Europe trip takes a bit over seven-hours and more than ten hours from San Diego. These days if you book first class on long flights, you’ll want that comfy seat that converts into a bed. That’s also true in your Gulfstream G700 or even Air Force One. Those options may soon change according to a couple of supersonic startups.
In vivid contrast to its company name, Boom Supersonic has made substantial progress in quieting the noise reaching the earth from its supersonic aircraft. The trick is flying at an altitude and airspeed where a sonic boom is refracted in the atmosphere and doesn’t reach the ground. The company asserted that its aircraft design coupled with sophisticated altitude and speed control systems would deliver this hushed overflight and its XB-1 supersonic test plane recently proved the concept.
It wasn’t a noise ruling that’s held back non-military supersonic flight, it was our government-imposed speed limit proclaimed by the US Congress 52-years ago. Since speed doesn’t have to be directly connected with sound, on May 14th a congressional group introduced the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act. The bill reasonably asks the FAA to allow flights over land at any speed as long as they don’t produce a sonic boom at ground level. Then on June 6th, President Trump weighed in with an executive order directing the FAA to lift the ban with the same logic. These recent government moves are a shot in the arm for the relatively few aviation startups with plans to build commercial supersonic aircraft.
Boom is clearly the leader in this new race to air travel that’s faster than sound. The company was founded in 2014 by CEO Blake Scholl, a computer science graduate from Carnegie Mellon who began his fast-paced career at Amazon. Scholl launched into personal flying in college and is a licensed pilot with an instrument rating. After visiting a Concorde SST in a museum, he became intrigued with why supersonic passenger flight had ended and how he might put a team together to restart it.
The Boom Supersonic journey is reminiscent of Elon Musk’s remarkable success with electric vehicles. If there’s clearly a market for rapid air travel, wouldn’t the well-established passenger aircraft companies like Boeing or Airbus lead the way? Not now is the short answer even though the old French/British firm Airbus built and flew the Concorde and Boeing developed a supersonic 2707 rival design in 1963. These days Airbus appears content to fill orders for subsonic airplanes while Boeing is busy managing its legacy business along with public relation challenges.
Gulfstream, the corporate jet producer that’s part of Grumman Aerospace worked with NASA on the X-54 supersonic prototype but stopped because of the FAA speed restrictions. Aircraft giant Lockheed Martin teamed with NASA in 2016 to develop the X-59, a prototype to test supersonic speed and noise issues. The government and private partnership has invested $839-million so far and while the plane hasn’t flown yet, it recently completed low-speed taxi tests.
In remarkable contrast, Boom began in 2014 raising $700 million using the money to design, build and successfully fly its XB-1 supersonic test aircraft. What’s more, the fledging company has designed and built its own engine, taken orders from major airlines and started construction on its factory in North Carolina. That’s entrepreneurial speed as fast as the aircraft.
The challenges of flying passengers beyond the speed of sound include range, fuel burn, noise, safety and regulations. And of course the revenue doesn’t arrive until actual deliveries begin. A couple of independent startups have quietly closed shop but Spike Aerospace recently relaunched its S-512 Diplomat, a supersonic plane designed to whisk business leaders around the globe. A unique design feature of the aircraft is a nearly windowless cabin to provide a strong, quiet fuselage. The common window space is replaced by high resolution video panels fed by exterior cameras or personal entertainment. It’s a perfectly logical design from a performance perspective, but I recall that an engineering team at Boeing suggested the scheme when the 787 was under development. Unfortunately, airline customers feared that few passengers would be willing to come aboard.
When will we be able to fly supersonic without joining the military? My guess is rather soon and I’m saving up some frequent flyer miles to book a flight!
